During my last semester here in Japan I tried my hand at writing news articles and editorials for my seminar. For this semester I am attempting to write a guide for a JRPG that isn't out in the West yet, Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Flash The goal of this is two-fold; to gain some insight into how writing a guide even takes place through first hand experience and to help with my own ability to translate Japanese into English. I have done some translation work before but nothing on this scale, and I've also never tried to write a structured guide for a game. Doing both is proving to be a lot of work but even still I am attempting it.

I have been writing the guide in my own notes and then uploading that to IGN's wiki for Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Flash. Upon putting my own notes into the wiki I have noticed that some of my original formatting options I was using don't translate well. If you have any advice on this, or have wiki experience and would like to go back and edit my formatting please feel free to. If you know Japanese and have better suggestions for my translations please let me know.

The guide is not finished yet. So far I have the prologue and chapters 1 - 4 out of 7 total up. I am currently working my way through chapter 5 and hope to have that done soon.

As for my plans for the guide, I will be making a map of the main cities with both the Japanese and English for each major location. Dungeons will not be receiving maps since they are fairly straight forward.

The guide can be found here: http://www.ign.com/wikis/the-legend-of-heroes-sen-no-kiseki

First off, I'd like to introduce the article that I read that has prompted me to want to write this particular post. The article in question is "Hearthstone: Randomness & Aggression" by @GabeStah. GabeStah is a World of Warcraft and Hearthstone player who regularly makes video guides for both games and posts them to his YouTube channel which can be found here. His article, which I've also included the accompanying video version of at the top of this post, is an essay in some of the aspects of Hearthstone which he views as issues that should be resolved. He touches on things such as the randomness of Hearthstone, the power of aggressive strategies, and provides feedback and ideas on how to possibly change these aspects of Hearthstone for the better. My intent with this post is to elaborate on his essay with my own views and opinions, while sometimes using his essay as a reference for discussion.

I have been playing Trading Card Games or TCGs for a very long time. I picked up Magic: The Gathering in 1995 and played it until I graduated high school in 2006 when I decided to take a break from the game. In between that time I also dabbled in the Pokemon TCG as well. Even though I took a break from Magic I also played the World of Warcraft TCG for about 2 years right after starting my break from Magic until I finally got away from competitive TCG playing all together. In my spare time I do still play some Magic on Magic: The Gathering Online but I am no where near as active in the competitive seen as I once was.

Then, Blizzard announced a little game called Hearthstone. Being free-to-play I decided to give it a try one day after getting an invite to the closed beta. The game had a certain charm to it, the voices of the characters and cards, the subtle musical score that plays in the background of each match, the familiar play style that I had come to know and love from other TCG games was all there. I had a blast, and found myself pouring hours upon hours into Hearthstone. Finding matches against other players was quick and easy; updating my deck was also streamlined to a point that even Wizards of the Coast could learn from. However, unlike previous TCGs that I had experience with, especially Magic, my enthusiasm for the game started to wane. Many of the issues that I had found while playing the WoW TCG are present in Hearthstone, along with a few that are unique to Hearthstone, and these started to really take their toll causing me to loose interest quickly.

In GabeStah's essay he talks about randomness in TCGs with an obvious focus on Hearthstone. He goes to great lengths to talk about two types of randomness, passive randomness and active randomness. Passive randomness refers to events that are out of the players control and are not unique to Hearthstone at all, such as drawing a new card each turn. Active randomness on the other hand refers to actively choosing to incorporate random elements into your own play experience such as playing the card Animal Companion which summons a random Beast Companion to your side. With regards to active randomness, an issue that GabeStah touches on a lot is that while you are actively including these extra random effects into your play experience, they aren't always equal. Some only negatively affect your opponent while others affect both players. Random cards aren't unique to Hearthstone either, Magic has them as well, only Hearthstone has far more of them.

Passive randomness is something you will probably never get rid of in TCGs, and that's fine. In Hearthstone this passive randomness is at an all-time low. For starters, deck size is only 30 cards as opposed to the normal 60 that you see in most other popular TCGs. You are also only allowed to play up to 2 of an given card which means at a minimum any one deck can contain 2 of up to 15 cards. Over the course of a match this means that you are very likely to see at least one of every type of card you have chosen to use. Further reducing the active randomness in Hearthstone is how it tackles the resource system. In a game such as Magic, you have to incorporate lands into your deck in order to play your spells. In Hearthstone, you generate one Mana Crystal every turn up to a max of 10. You are always guaranteed to gain one Mana Crystal each turn and there is no risk of gaining too much, either. This means that every card you draw and that your opponent draws can have an impact on the game state in some way. The risk of drawing too many lands or too little lands like in Magic is not a factor. On one end this is refreshing as I've lost my fair share of games in Magic to both flooding out and drawing too many mana sources and to not drawing enough or the right kinds. But at the same time I can't help but feel this detracts from a major strategic element of competitive TCGs, deck building.

Deck building is a stable of competitive TCGs, and being good at it can give you a significant edge in tournaments and other competitions. Being able to read the metagame and make changes to your existing deck or designing a new one to combat the metagame is a skill in and of itself. In Hearthstone, this aspect of TCGs is rather limited for a number of reasons. One of those being the resource system. In Magic, you not only need to consider what spells you want to play but also how you are going to play them. You need to look at average casting cost, color distribution, etc... and from there decide on how much of your deck you will dedicate to lands. Even spells that draw you extra cards, produce mana themselves or let you manipulate your deck in some way play a major roll in deciding what and how many lands to play. Even the best deck builders in the world will still sometimes loose to randomly drawing too may or too few lands, but being able to minimize this from happening with proper deck construction is something that doesn't exist in Hearthstone. Even more imposing on the creative side of Hearthstone is perhaps the biggest limiter in deck building, the card pool.

Card pool, in TCGs, refers to the given number of available cards in a given format. These are the cards at a players disposal with which they can use to construct or alter decks. Now, I fully realize that Hearthstone is very new in comparison to other TCGs such as Magic and as such couldn't possibly have the same size card pool; still, I do consider it a major issue. The issue is actually less in the number of cards currently in the pool but in how they are distributed. There are roughly 400 cards in Hearthstone, however, when designing a deck the actual number you have access too is considerably smaller. In Hearthstone, you choose a hero which is based off of a class from World of Warcraft. Depending on which hero you choose the cards available for deck building will be different. Each hero has their own class cards and can't use cards from a different hero's class; so for example, a Mage can't use Rogue cards. There are also neutral cards but these only consist of creatures, and by now the powerful ones have all been discovered so if a class will be playing neutral cards there isn't a lot to guess about which ones they will be. The number of cards a hero has access to is also limited, which when combined with knowing which neutral cards are good and which aren't means that you can fairly accurately deduce within the first few turns of a game what your opponent is playing. This class restrictive system was also present in the WoW TCG and severely limits creative deck construction. One possible solution is to release a lot more class cards but even with the recent expansion, Curse of Naxxramus, only 9 new class cards where added, one for each hero. In comparison to Hearthstone, in Magic you can play pretty much any card from any color you want, meaning when a new set with 300 plus cards is released any deck you build has access to all those cards. It is then up to you how to use them. Unfortunately, I don't have an answer to how to solve this problem for Hearthstone. Like I said, it was an issue with the WoW TCG as well and was ultimately the reason why I stopped playing that game. The lack of variance between decks and between what was available to me as a deck building caused me to loose interest.

Another issue that GabeStah touched upon in his essay was with how in Hearthstone, aggressive decks and combo decks tend to be the most powerful and therefor the large majority of the field is comprised of them. The idea of a pure control deck is really not there, and even when one is made it tends to not do well for very long. In my opinion there are two major reasons for this, combat and the lack of reactive cards. GabeStah also mentioned the lack of reactiveness as an issue as well so I'll start with that. In Hearthstone, when it is your opponents turn, you can't do anything. You are completely at the mercy of your opponent. In other TCGs you often have cards that can be played even during your opponents turn, usually during windows of priority in which you are given a chance to react. Spells like Counterspell allow you to deny an opponent the ability to play a card, or spells like Lightning Bolt let you kill off a creature before it can deal damage to you. While Counterspell does exist in Hearthstone, it is a Secret which means you play it and whenever your opponent plays a spell it automatically gets cast. This is not reactive because you don't get to choose what spell your counterspell actually counters.

GabeStah's proposed solution was to add in a new type of card called Reaction Cards that could be used during a new Reaction Phase. This new phase would happen between turns and in order to not make Hearthstone matches last too long would only last about 10 seconds. He even gives example cards such as "Reverse Damage: Heal your hero for 50% of the damage dealt to you this turn, rounded down." An example scenario he gives is as follows:

You cast Cancel Magic in your Reaction phase and choose the Fireball to revert.

Your Sen’jin no longer takes 6 damage, and thus is returned to the field as a ⅗ Taunt minion.

However, because the Fireball only directly affected the Sen’jin, the Cancel Magic has no impact on the two 3/2 minions nor the damage they dealt to your hero. They do not get “stopped” because while the Sen’jin remaining alive during the attack would’ve caused the Taunt to get in the way, the Cancel Magic only alters the direct effect of the canceled Fireball spell.

I like the idea he heading in by wanting to introduce reactive cards and a place to use them but I feel his idea would bring too much confusion to the game. Also, these wouldn't always completely benefit the user. In the case above you do get your minion back but in the end your opponent still dealt 6 damage to you. So, you counter the Fireball but still don't get to make use of your creatures ability.

Rather than take GabeStah's approach I think that Blizzard should learn from other successful TCGs and just add in the cards and the ability to react to your opponents plays. In future sets and updates give us the ability to use spells that counter an opponents spell right on the spot, or deal damage to a proposed attacking minion. If keeping match time as short as possible is an issue then maybe take 10 seconds away from each players main phase and only give players 5 seconds or so to make a reactive play. This would be an effective way to not only add more play to Hearthstone but help keep aggressive strategies in check.

The other reason for aggressive and combo decks being so powerful in my opinion is combat. More specifically, how combat plays out. In Hearthstone, the attacking players has the advantage; they get to make all the decisions. Even if your opponent has 7 minions on the board, if none of them have Taunt then you can just choose not to attack them. You can also choose to attack with one minion at a time. In Magic for example, when you choose to attack you must first choose which creature(s) will attack. Once you have chosen and moved to the attack phase you can't then have another creature attack later during your turn. Also, when you choose to attack you are forced to attack your opponent (with the exception of if they have a Planeswalker in play) and it is up to your opponent to choose if one of their creatures gets in the way to block or not. This type of combat can serve as a power check for aggressive strategies since the advantage generally lays with the defending player. While I feel adding in a new type of reactive card is more likely, both of these options would pave the way for a more pure control strategy to take root and would limit the effectiveness of aggressive ones.

While this may sound like I have a lot of complaints about Hearthstone (I actually really dislike the Arena system and feel it is inferior to drafting in Magic) I do think Hearthstone is a good game. I just can't help but feel it was designed with a casual type of player in mind rather than a competitive player. Even the way games are heads up matches instead of best 2 out of 3 further enforces this. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if Hearthstone is going to continue to grow I feel that the competitive side is what will facilitate that, much like with Magic, and for that changes should be made to keep the player base interested.

While there will be lots of jobs to be in Final Fantasy Explorers, both old and new, when you first start out the game you will be a Freelancer. The Freelancer class will work like any other, you create equipment by defeating enemies and summoned monsters to acquire materials which you can then use to craft new gear. Among the possible gear you can craft, swords, gloves, staves, rods, axes, spears and bells have all been confirmed. Exactly when you will be given the option to change into your first specialized job has not yet been announced.

Square Enix will also have local wireless and internet multiplayer available. Communication during online play will be done through the use of simple text phrases.

Final Fantasy Explorers will be out for Nintendo 3DS this Winter in Japan.

Natural Doctrine is Kadokawa Games internally developed tactics RPG which has made a name for itself for being incredibly difficult. Well, as if just in time for a Western release later this year Natural Doctrine has gotten its first patch as well as some DLC.

Included in this patch is an expansion to the games tutorials giving further details on the mechanics of the game. In addition, you will also be shown tips and tactics on how to clear missions when you first start them up. Also, more checkpoints have been added to each mission to help make failure less painful. And if that wasn't already enough, Natural Doctrine's easy mode is having it's difficulty greatly reduced.

A quality of life change has also been added. Now you can hold down the X button during the enemies turn to speed up their actions. The time the enemy spends thinking about their next action has also been shortened.

Three online co-op missions have been added, and owners of the Playstation 4 version of the game will get an additional set of extra hard DLC missions for free.

Natural Doctrine is out in Japan for the Playstation 4, Playstation 3 and PS Vita, and will be released by NIS America in North America on September 16.

Just recently I posted about the balance issues that Japanese gamers have been voicing concerns about with regards to Freedom Wars for the PS Vita. Well, the first patch is now out and here is the rundown on some of the changes included.

It appears that at least for now Chapters 7 and onward will receive changes to enemy respawn rates as well as adjustments in enemy hit points. The enemy prisoners, or the humanoid characters like yourself, will also have their thorn weapons, AI and other weapons changed as well. On the optimization side of things the ability to use your own whip while dashing is also being implemented; along with new control schemes.

As for the first major update that Freedom Wars will receive, online functionality will be added to the game. Text chatting as well as voice chat are confirmed features of this mode, and players will now also be able to progress through the story together. Previously even in ad hoc mode you needed to have already completed a mission to play it multiplayer.

Enemy Territory Invasion is a new feature also being added which allows you to attack other Panapticons, represented by the different prefectures in Japan and the different States in the US. Successful invasions will lower the opposing Panapticons' GDPP which determines overall rank of the zones.

Finally, character rankings will also be added and will be viewable alongside city-state rankings as well. High ranks will come with special prizes.

Freedom Wars is already out in Japan and will be released later this year in the West for the Playstation Vita.